Walk Away
by NorthernTrash-x
Summary: Kaname/Momomi. They both needed to grow up, before they could make things better again.


Momomi x Kaname

**Walk Away**

_That's why the best thing I can give to you  
__Is for me to go, leave you alone  
__You've got growing up to do  
_Joshua Radin

She had stood behind the chain link fence of the tennis courts, watching the two of them, and had realised that she was a fool.

These years of sleeping in the same bed, of lying next to each other in the darkness, meant next to nothing when she so clearly had not understood what was going on in her head. Kaname, who was standing there waiting for Amane to serve, waiting for the moment to leap to hit that ball back over the next, waiting for them moment where she could finally win. Kaname, who had stood there not even thinking of her, of Momomi, who had been standing there too, watching, not fully understanding what was going on.

Kaname.

Defeated. Momomi had watched her watch Amane, with a flicker of a smile and sudden warmth in her eyes and a new lightness to her step as she had moved towards the net, as if something had been lifted from her shoulders. Kaname, who never swayed, who never took defeat as an option, who never stared right ahead like that, clear eyed, but was always casting looks in other directions, although what she was looking for Momomi had never known.

_Her _Kaname.

Who she had always hoped was looking for her.

_Her_ Momomi.

And there Momomi stood now, resting her head against the wooden door to a room that she spent every night in, so much more familiar than her own room, into which she rarely went at all, and certainly never alone. Everything to her was in this room, but she suddenly felt unwelcome, and a part of her did not want to go in at all.

Another, more substantial voice in her mind, was far too angry to.

Her hand was on the cold of the door handle, but she did not turn it, and she did not make a sound. She could hear the shower running, and knew that if she opened the door now, she could ease herself back into a routine and keep on pretending that it was okay. Kaname would not turn her away, not when she was, behind her strong exterior, so very afraid of being alone.

But no, she could not.

She could not sit there and love her and pretend. Not when Kaname was still staring into the distance, still wistfully looking at some childhood dream, something that still lingered, like a beautiful shadow, in her mind. No, she could pretend no more, because now she could put a name to that shadow, and somehow that made it worse, knowing what it was that still lingered in the eyes of the woman that she loved. Would she be able to stand there and watch Kaname's head turn at every flicker of blue hair? Would she be able to stand the knowledge that she was nothing but a pretty distraction until what Kaname really wanted noticed her?

Amane.

A name haunting them both, perhaps, for different reasons.

No more, she whispered to herself in the darkness.

Momomi turned, and left. She did not go into that room, even though all that she had was in there, even though a very real part of her desperately longed to sink herself into the warmth of their bed and close her eyes.

Now was a time to make a stand. Now was the time to walk away.

So, she did.

And she spent that night alone in her room, staring up at a ceiling that was laughably unfamiliar, and tried not to think of the two of them, of Kaname spending these years wishing for something, someone, more than what she had. Was she nothing but a replacement, something to fill the void with, someone to waste time with? She rolled over, and buried her head into the cold pillow, forcing her mind away from such thoughts. Because she may have been a distraction, but there must also have been something else there.

That bed had been far too warm for there to be nothing there but two unconnected bodies.

She remembered their first night together, when Kaname had looked right at her, right down into her eyes like she was seeing something for the first time. She remembered that evening when she thought she had failed her English exam, sitting there in the bath, hugging her knees to her, and Kaname had come to find her. She had stood in the doorway, shook her head with a smile, pulled her clothes off and sat behind her, the weeping girl in between her legs, and she had soaped her back until all the tears had gone. She remembered all of the mornings when she had woken to see Kaname watching her, and all those days spent together, the two of them, always the two of them.

No, there had been love there.

Still there.

Momomi found her eyelids finally sliding shut, and had realised perhaps the most important thing.

Time.

Kaname needed time.

She needed to forget, and to move on, and to grow out of her infatuation and obsession with Amane. She needed some time to wash that shadow away from her, and to find out who she was without it, and what it was that she really, really wanted. And because it was Kaname, and she always did as she pleased, Momomi's worries fell away from her, because she was sure that all their time had meant just as much to her, and that one day, sooner or later, Kaname would lose that shadow, and would remember too, and turn that new, clear stare on her, and hold out her hand.

She would tell Momomi that it was gone, that the time had passed by, and that all there was now, for the two of them, was the future.

The darkness had passed.

She needed (perhaps, in a way, they both needed) time to grow up, for them both to let go of the childish whims that had been set upon them for so very long.

And one day, one day soon…

Kaname would smile the smile that always made her lover and her best friend weak, that always made her yield to whatever she wanted, and would say that now all that there was of her, all that had been missing before, was for Momomi, and for Momomi alone.

And in return, she knew that she would put her own hand in that outstretched one, and they would fall back into that warm (achingly, beautifully warm) bed, together again.


End file.
